The Italians in Kerala.

Over the years, Kerala has been host to various citizens from around the world. Some came to Kerala as refugees (Jews) while some as tradesmen/invaders/missionaries (Dutch, Portugese, Syrians and the list goes on). Almost all the Jews have left Kerala for good and the others have more or less disappeared as semi-Indians or have left the place. But it comes as a surprise to those in Kerala to still find die hard citizens from Italy!

Two Indian fishermen were shot to death by Italians for reasons only they know. The only plausible reason could be that they were drunk or were using them as targets for their practice shots. As for their claim that they mistook them for pirates, if they are indeed sailors or were guarding a ship, they should by now know the area where pirates roam freely. What if the Indian Navy had responded in kind since it was an unprovoked attack on Indian citizens? There were 9 fishermen in this boat and while 7 of them were resting, only two were fishing. And also a fisherman with a fishing rod has never been a threat to anyone and if people wielding guns and binoculars cannot properly identify threats then the only solution is to put such criminals behind bars.

And when the state is in the process of doing so, comes an Italian citizen hiding behind his Indian citizenship assuring Italy that he will do all his best to bring the innocent boys back to Italy. He even has the audacity to tell the Italians that he has already spoken to the Christian ministers. The only sane course of action would be to strip such idiots off their Indian citizenship and pack them off to Italy. But since they have the “laborious” task of tending their sheep, let them stand in queue for a visa and be denied a visa

Marriage is after all a 'license to start an extra-marital affair

It is early afternoon, a hot mid-summer day.A skinny, high old hotel comes into view. On its exposed brick side great painted letters advertise "Salt n Pepper”

A small room, a slow fan buzzing on a shelf above the narrow

bed. A card of hotel rules is pasted on the mirror above the

bureau.

A young woman is stretched out on the mussed bed. She wears a full slip, stockings, and no shoes.

She lies in and attitude of physical relaxation, but her face, seen in the dimness of the room, betrays a certain inner-tension, worrisome conflicts.

She is Ann Mary (22)

A man stands beside the bed, only the lower half of his figure visible

The man standing by the bed, wearing only trousers,is SAM ALEX.(35)

He is wiping his neck and face with a thin towel, and is staring down at Mary, a small sweet smile playing about his mouth. Mary keeps her face turned away from him.

After a moment, Sam drops the towel, sits on the bed, leans over and takes Mary into his arms, kisses her long and warmly, holds her with a firm possessiveness.

The kiss is disturbed and finally interrupted by the sounds of the inconsiderate fan.

Sam smiles, pulls away enough to allow Mary to relax again against the pillow.

He studies her, frowns at her unresponsiveness, then speaks in a low, intimate, playful voice

 

MARY:  I better get back to the office. These extended lunch hours give my boss excess acid.

She rises, goes to the bureau, takes a pair of small earrings out of her bag, and begins putting them on, not bothering or perhaps not wanting to look at herself in the mirror.

Sam watches her, concerned but unable to inhibit his cheery, humorous good mood.

SAM: Call your boss and tell him you're taking the rest of the afternoon off. It's Friday anyway... and hot.

MARY:         (soft sarcasm)

What do I do with my free afternoon, walk you to the airport?

SAM:          (meaningfully)

We could laze around here a while longer.

MARY:  Sam. This is the last time.!!

             

SAM:   For what?

MARY:  This! Meeting you in secret so we can be... secretive! You come down here on business trips and we steal lunch hours and... I wish you wouldn't even come.

SAM:   Okay. What do we do instead, spent time on phone sex??

MARY:         (about to argue, then turning away)

       I haven't time to argue. I'm a working girl.

SAM:   And I'm a working man! We're a regular working-class tragedy!

              (he laughs)  

       Sure. It's like laughing through a broken jaw, but...(goes close to Mary, touches her)

      

MARY:         (pulling away)

       I have to go, Sam.

SAM:   Mary, whenever it's possible, I want to see you. And under any conditions.

              (a smile)

       Even respectability.

MARY:  You make respectability sound...disrespectful.

SAM:          (brightly)

       I'm all for it! It requires patience and temperance and a lot of sweating-out... otherwise, though, it's only hard work.

              (a pause)

      

       I'm fed up with sweating for people who aren't there. I sweat to pay off my father's debts... and he's in his grave... and…my wife…

             

MARY:         (smiling, then with a terrible urgency)

       Sam, let's go get married.

SAM:   And live with me in the storeroom. We'll have a lot of laughs. When I send my wife her divorce petition, you can lick the stamps.

MARY:         (a deep desperation)

       I'll lick the…. (Pause) STAMPSSS!!!.

He looks at her, long, pulls her close, kisses her lightly, looks out the window and stares at the wide sky.

SAM:   Hey, we can leave together can't we?

MARY:         (at door)

       I'm late... and you have to put your shoes on.

Mary goes out quickly, closing door behind her.As Sam stares down at his shoeless feet




        “Marriage is after all a 'license to start an extra-marital affair”

Have I made it large??

Everyone’s heard the saying… you’ve only got one life, live it large. Now let’s examine that... This can be divided into two sections:

• You have only one life

• You should live your life large.

Commentary:

• Apparently everyone has got only one life. Agreed. In that case, what do those people who believe in an afterlife say? You have many lives, live them all large? You have many lives; you can afford to live this one large? Ummm… Then, what about those people who tell others to “get a life...”? Does this mean they believe in the afterlife? Going by this now, it would mean that we live in a society filled with people who are (i) alive and (ii) people aspiring to be alive. But then again, what right do those people have to tell anyone to “get a life”? Why can’t they ever consider that someone might actually be happy being “dead”? Why must they force or induce life in a person? Inconsiderate people…
  
  Maybe the “dead” people consider themselves as alive and the alive as “dead”. Wouldn’t it be confusing for them when they hear such a shockingly enlightening statement? But then the question would be as to who’s actually
  "alive" and who’s not… Then we would have to consider life and death as being relative…

• You should live your life large. Then why the stigma against the obese!?!? Enough said…

Just a passing thought if all of us were dead,would we be called dead?

RAGGINGGG......

Ragging and its consequences are in the news again after the death of a 19 yr old medical student recently. Debates and discussions are going on the issue of prevention of ragging and enforcement of laws. My post, however, is not on that topic. My post is on the fond memories of ragging I have from my B.E. days and the effect it had on us.

On the first night in hostel, we had the huge task of memorizing all our batch mates names and hometowns and our introduction in Hindi. Thank god I had pretty good memorizing power 

Our ragging consisted of singing, dancing, jokes, lots of scolding and ridiculing not to mention all those censored parts. Seniors also gave us the tips about college, super seniors, studies and teachers. They laid out rules for hostel including bathroom and we had to follow them.

Our day would start with us wishing all our seniors a good morning. Then we used to leave for college accompanied by two seniors, walking in a single line with our eyes on the “third button” and wishing anyone who passed us by. During recess, we hostelers didn’t venture out. Then in evening we were accompanied back by our seniors. After freshening up, we all went for the evening wish. Then after dinner we went for ragging every night for 2-3 hours.

We continued the traditions when we became seniors and we had the most wonderful time with our juniors.

Ragging made us unite, to look out for each other and to have discipline. The habit of addressing people as Sir or Ma’am got wired into me after ragging only. It also helped me in understanding and following the junior- senior relation at work place too. It helped me learn to control temper and to not backtalk even if the senior is wrong. Whether we like it or not, whether it is good or back, Indian systems function in hierarchies and this is the 1st lesson in life we got through ragging!!! Ragging helped us in learning humility, politeness, and to be comfortable with one’s personality and body.

I hold the personal opinion that there should be harmless ragging in the right manner, within limits of decency and human rights.  Harmless ragging means no physical infliction of pain should be involved and no demeaning act should be asked to perform. Such ragging is actually lots of fun and gives us good memories of college & hostel life.

RAT RACE

I see my friends running... May be i am running too...Ain’t all of us running??? Yes, but I think everyone’s approach/level of interest/level of involvement is different…

I wonder how people can keep cribbing about the ‘rat race’ and at the same time get so engrossed in it that they take their personal lives for granted! And what are they left with… not much at the personal front for sure… maybe something (or a lot) at the professional front. But I really wanna know… does it give them a real sense of accomplishment? Are they really able to enjoy or celebrate that professional success after they’ve screwed their personal lives for that?

Today i see my friends taking up jobs or appearing for placement process that has nothing to do with there dreams. And the explanation they have is I am being practical/Realistic...

I don’t say there’s any harm in being that career-oriented also. But you must have your preferences clear in your head. Why do you have to have a dream, if you are so concerned about your professional success?

My blood boils… yes!!!

KAPIL SIBAL SYNDROME ????

It was only yesterday that I received commandments regarding facebook usage from university.    

 It’s interesting to note that a pastor in New Jersey had issued a similar notice to the church members.

What’s happening to universities and churches?? Do we need a regulation or is it a kapil sibal syndrome that needs to ignored.

Pastor had an interesting observation to make regarding his decision to Ban Facebook, it read something like this…

Thou shall not Facebook

A New Jersey pastor says that the marriage counseling that he’s been doing over the past 18 months suggests that the social networking site - by allowing people to reconnect with old flames - is creating marital trouble.

His solution: married couples should delete their Facebook accounts. And, to set an example, he is ordering some 50 married church officials to either quit the site or resign from their leadership positions. It’s certainly a more extreme push than his previous suggestion that married couples share their login information with each other.

My university also gave a similar explanation regarding the new regulations on facebook usage by her students.

Cant quote the same here, because of the fear of being regulated…

Is the pastor right???? Do we need regulations as my university says??Or is it just a Kapil Sibal syndrome????

I wouldn’t say Facebook is the problem. What I would say is we live in a rapidly changing world, and we are facing stresses and opportunities that we’ve never had to face before. Facebook doesn’t create dissatisfied marriages. People who are dissatisfied now have better means of creating support systems and networks that are much more vast, and it’s much easier to connect with people that way.

So while Facebook may be the outlet where people in troubled marriages go for support or even online relationships that are more satisfying than the home relationship, it seems like a bit of a stretch to think that deleting a Facebook account will change things for some husbands and wives.

And the idea that a pastor can force a church leader to resign his position over membership in a social networking site - even if for a well-intended reason - is definitely an abuse of power. Just because some people aren’t strong or secure enough in their marriages to be able to interact with others on the Internet without cheating, doesn’t mean that everyone who is married and on Facebook will cave to the temptations put out there.

At least that’s how I see it.  What do you think?

Serial killers...

I had always been a granny’s son. My siblings and cousins always had problem with that. So the other day when I saw mallu movie wherein the hero was sleeping on his granny’s lap as she brushed his hair and narrated some folk tales, I too felt to call my grandma…

But Alas..

Gone are the days of Muthassi kathas(grannie tales) from Kerala because the Muthassis (grannies) are too busy watching television serials! Yes, I must be daft to look for deep revelations of the human psyche from the Malayalam television serials- but my curiosity is less about the characters, more about those who watch them.

Someone please explain to me why people are so hooked on to such titanic proportions of tragedy, sorrow, torture, resentment and personal strife? What makes them return everyday at one time to get their dose of negativity? What is so magnetic about characters who unleash their anger, sadism and greed on those around them? What makes them powerful enough to attract viewers and advertisers alike?

Surely, something you watch with daily dedication for an hour or two must have some impact on one’s psyche… that brings me to my most dreaded fear – what if we were to imagine that our media mirrors our society? Or the reverse theory that society will mirror our media?

Eeeks…. Someone HELP!

THE TIMES OF INDIA Celebrates Gods Own Country - Kerala, as THE LAND OF MANY KALIS with this Malayalam Rock song by AVIAL .

'SuprabathaKali' is a musical that celebrates the competitive spirit of the modern malayalee every morning. 
-----------------------
SuprabathaKali : The Times Avial Malayalam Rock Music Video was Directed by Senthil Kumar, National Creative Director : JWT India.